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Ipswich nurse’s positive test sends 220 hospital staff into quarantine

More than 200 Queensland hospital staff remain in COVID-19 isolation as virus clusters linked to two quarantine-dodging teens continue to grow.

 

Sep 07, 2020, updated Sep 07, 2020
Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young and Deputy Premier Steven Miles. (Photo: AAP Image/Dan Peled)

Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young and Deputy Premier Steven Miles. (Photo: AAP Image/Dan Peled)

Outbreaks in two Corrective Services facilities near Brisbane have now infected 83 people.

A nurse working with infected patients at Ipswich Hospital was one two people diagnosed on Sunday. The other is the sister of a student at Staines Memorial College, who was already in quarantine.

“We (also) have 222 staff at the Ipswich hospital in quarantine,” Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young told reporters.

She said both new cases were part of the outbreaks at the Brisbane Youth Detention Centre and Queensland Corrective Services training centre.

Testing previously found it was likely the clusters were linked to three women who lied on their border declarations after returning from Victoria in July.

Two of them then spent more than a week in the Brisbane area visiting restaurants, cafes and working before testing positive to coronavirus.

“All of our cases are most likely – I don’t have proof – linked to one of three young women who went down to Melbourne,” Dr Young said.

The cluster at the detention centre at Wacol began when a prison worker tested positive for coronavirus in August.

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It lead to a a second cluster at the nearby Correctional Services Training Academy when a senior trainer became infected.

Some of the staff potentially exposed at the centre also worked at the Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre.

Southeast Queensland prisons went into lockdown 10 days ago as a result, with 7000 prisoners confined to their cells.

Riots have since broken out at two facilities.

-AAP

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